This invention relates to a shoe. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with an athletic shoe suitable for use primarily in marathon, jogging, tennis, volleyball and like sports.
In general, a fabric is commonly used as a shoe upper of an athletic shoe. It is said that proper elasticity inherent in the shoe upper made of a fabric is advantageous in that it does not give a sense of oppression and a sense of fatigue. With respect to the shoe upper made of a fabric having such elasticity, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,793,750 and 4,043,058 each propose a shoe upper having a multi-layer sandwich construction prepared by interposing a plastic foam layer, such as a polyurethane layer, between an outer fabric layer and an inner fabric layer and bonding them.
However, the above-mentioned shoe upper having a plastic foam layer interposed therein is not necessarily satisfactory in air permeability. Therefore, this causes problems such that the inside of the shoe becomes stuffy and hot because of abnormal temperature increase attributable to the sweating and generation of heat from feet during exercise, which brings about a discomfort. Further, although the above-mentioned resin foam layer has elasticity, it is large in resistance to the movement between the outer and inner fabric layers, because it is bonded to each of the outer and inner fabric layers with an adhesive, which leads to a large resistance of the shoe upper per se to bending. This inhibited the effect of alleviating a sense of oppression and a sense of fatigue for the feet.